First of all, I’m very sorry for all of the chaos and negative attention that has surrounded our school in the past couple of weeks. What I meant as a light and humorous remark during class has developed into a huge conflict between students, faculty, parents and neighbors. My words were never meant to belittle Ms. Pawlucy, or cause any harm, and I truly regret that we have come to this point.

I firmly believe in the right to freedom of speech and expression. I have always taught you to be unafraid of who you are, and to be unafraid to express your beliefs. Everyone who has ever been in my classroom knows that when we have disagreements, we are expected to talk through them, and work out our differences in a civilized and calm manner.

Because I have always encouraged you to resolve your differences through conversation, I’m very disturbed by the negative and hateful words and messages that have been directed at Sam Pawlucy. The bullying of Sam—on Facebook, Twitter, or otherwise—has to stop.

I hope we can take this whole unfortunate incident, and use it as a lesson in how to agree without being disagreeable. Freedom is speech is everyone’s right. But let’s use it to have discussions that help us to better understand each other, not rip each other apart. I hope we’ve all learned that lesson.

The Carroll students that I know have always supported each other, even when they have disagreements. This is a very rough time for Sam, and she needs that support from you now more than ever. Let’s get back to being the school where we care for each other, and where we show up for school on time, in uniform and ready to work!

Have a good day, go to all of your classes and get all of your credits now!